Friday, December 24, 2010

A brook of blessings.

The way bodies move genuinely to beatsIs, after all, gorgeous and affecting.Dance until you're sweatingAnd beads of perspiration remind you of life's best thingsDown your back like a brook of blessings--Tanya Davis

2010 was a humbling year for me physically. I got taken out at the knees by a five year-old in an ice rink from behind, and in an instant my entire existence was located in the tip of my tailbone. After 6 weeks of not moving much, I decided to take up capoiera. Then I threw my back out picking up a garden hose and, after a week of not being able to put my pants on, sciatica came for a visit and decided to stay through five days of watching other people dance at Esalen. Come summer, I was laid up by a severe gut infection that was diagnosed by a procedure I don't wish on my worst enemy.

I became afraid to make a move because it seemed like every time I got a little better, I got a full smackdown.

Then I went to a yoga class. And another one. And one more. And then a whole month, focusing very consciously on being honest about what my body could manage, and on finding compassion for that. Then two. Now three.

And on Solstice this year, I went back to the dance studio and dervished like I haven't been able to in almost a year.

Terry Tempest Williams wrote this wonderful book called Leap, about the year she spent in Spain at The Prado looking at one Bosch painting. She writes that "movement is a place," and it is. It's another dimension of existence, one that's weightless and formless and without boundary. It's a place that feels more like home to me than anywhere else, with a family of other boundary-less people that I am so lucky to have found.

This week, I came home. I am home, finally.

As the year closes, my wish for you is that, if you haven't yet, you find your home.